


No such thing as a best kept secret

by adenium (peccolia)



Series: Never Knew AU [3]
Category: Five Nights at Freddy's
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood and Injury, Family Issues, Family Secrets, Five Nights at Freddy's: The Silver Eyes, Gen, Michael is Mike Schmidt, Michael is also Jeremy Fitzgerald, Strained Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 18:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18696826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peccolia/pseuds/adenium
Summary: What you don’t know won’t hurt you.That was how the saying went, but Mike couldn’t revel in it at all because he was currently experiencing the exact opposite of that. He knew something, something important, something once hidden, and perhaps because of that well-kept secret he ended up with his hand stuck fast behind a heavy panel.





	No such thing as a best kept secret

**Author's Note:**

> Just an idea/preview drabble of what Michael’s role and relationship to his estranged father would be in this AU if I manage to work him into the story. Several years before book canon takes place.

What you don’t know won’t hurt you.

That was how the saying went, but Mike couldn’t revel in it at all because he was currently experiencing the exact opposite of that. He knew something, something important, something once hidden, and perhaps because of that well-kept secret he ended up with his hand stuck fast behind a heavy panel. It snapped shut in its frame before he could catch it—and clamped tight across four full fingers, at the first knuckle. His thumb miraculously escaped, but he wasn’t all too thankful for that since it didn’t do much to stop the scream of pain welling up like a hot geyser in his chest. He forced it back with tightly-clamped lips and eyes, prying desperately at the edges, trying to ease the fingers of his other hand into the narrow space his crushed fingers occupied.

Numb—they were numb. At least they didn’t get completely lopped off; he was sure he’d feel a more extreme, more biting pain, if he had nothing left but open, blood-spouting nubs. He wouldn’t be stuck, either, if that were the case. The panel must have sunk in on the nerves and cut off the blood flow.

The scream was only from the sudden shock of it all. Only that, he told himself, over and over. And over.

He breathed out sharply, then inhaled, in, out, in, out, sweat dripping heavy down his face as he tried again to pry the sleek metal panel open.

No one else was there to help—and all because he’d offered to stay back and take care of the routine maintenance check while his boss took lunch.

“ _Stupid_ ,” he told himself, voice rough as gravel, hissed through gritted teeth. “Stupid, stupid. Why did you even put your hand there? You knew better, you absolute _ass_.”

He did—he knew better, even if the safety manuals remained unread. But the panel wasn’t supposed to lock _itself_ when it closed. That was what the key was for. The unexpected presence of his fingers in the framework must have thrown everything off and jammed something in the latch.

The panel shifted up—just a bit, but enough for him to gasp. And then yell out as the pressure, briefly removed, smashed down on his fingers again as it slipped from his hold. He gripped his wrist tightly with his free hand, bowing his head and doing his best to stifle the whines of pain until the numbness took over again.

He swore he heard a _crack_.

When the pain ebbed away into nothingness, he dropped his forehead against one of the properly closed panels and exhaled. Tried to focus on anything else at the moment. Tried to keep a cool head and stay calm.

The flashlight he’d brought into the breaker room had rolled away somewhere, dropped like a hot rock when he’d gotten his hand snagged, but its bright glow illuminated the spaces beneath metal shelf units and cardboard boxes stored nearby. Overhead, the faint, yellow tint of a bare lightbulb didn’t do much better to light up the place.

Maybe if the lighting wasn’t so god awful he would have seen where he’d put his hand before the breaker chomped it like a snapping turtle.

The low hum of the generator carried throughout the room, almost lulling him into a white-noise stupor. But he had to stay alert, and awake. Who knew what would happen if he just left his hand like it was—maybe they’d start to die from blood loss and need amputation, if they didn’t fall off on their own. Or, hell, maybe he’d freeze to death down here since his boss never paid the heating bill. It had to be near or below forty degrees; he sure wished he hadn’t left his jacket hanging on the back of his chair. He also wished he wasn’t _stuck_.

He leaned his weight against the breaker unit, pressing the side of his face flat against the cold surface—not wincing, to his credit—and trying to peer into the space where his fingers were clamped. Too dark to see anything.

Despite the uncomfortably chilled temperature, sweat continued trickling down his face, down his neck, soaking into his T-shirt and probably through to his coveralls, too.

At one point in time, he would’ve eaten up this kind of opportunity. Used the injury as a dramatic excuse to call off the piano lessons his mother always pushed on him as a child. All the grueling baseball practice, too. But now…right now…he needed both hands to do this job and remain where he was.

What could he do?

He took stock of the room once more and caught sight of the tool box nearby. Almost hidden in the darkness—he would’ve overlooked it if the shiny red metal edge hadn’t caught the light.

It was close enough to touch. But just barely.

The panel pulled at his skin, at his bones, as he stretched out his free hand to flip the lid open and search the box for something he could use to pry his fingers free. Wrench, loose bolts, screwdriver—screwdriver. The tool clanged against the box as he clumsily scrabbled to pull it free and return to the panel. It caught the edge of the tool box and brought the entire thing down on the ground—slipped from his shaking hand.

“No, no, no…” His heart pounded in time with the clattering, bouncing bolts, but he didn’t flinch at the noise. He scanned the ground for the screwdriver, hoping against hope that it hadn’t rolled out of reach and left him to his fate.

No. It was still near, pinned under the wrench. He grabbed it up before it could escape again and returned to the breaker panel, barely aware his breathing had become so quick and shallow.

He wasted no time jamming the screwdriver into the space between the panel and its frame and crowbarring it until it eased up enough for him to yank his hand free.

He cheered, gave a delirious laugh, but the victory was short lived. No longer pinched in that metal trap, his fingers began to throb, hot, then cold, the ache encompassing his entire hand even though only the line just beneath his first knuckles had been smashed. And smashed they were. Ugly red, both from specks of blood, and from swelling. His ring finger and pinky hung awkwardly, fully dislocated (but still hanging on, at least), and his middle and index fingers didn’t fare much better. They moved on reflex—and the pain increased drastically, like he’d run them through a blender.

He didn’t cry out, though. He’d won—he’d gotten free, and he wouldn’t let the pain beat him even though the future outlook for his job was bleak. He cradled his hand gingerly at the wrist and turned on his heel to exit the room—

—and saw that he wasn’t alone.

Dave (or so he liked to pretend these days, but Mike knew him as William, without a doubt) lingered in the doorway, quiet as a prowling cat, and he wasn’t sure if he’d just walked up or if he’d been standing there the entire time. The neutral look on his face didn’t give an answer, either. All he knew for certain was that his boss wasn’t the kind of man who’d rush up with concern for either his employee’s health or a pending lawsuit.  

Mike inhaled sharply and forced a wry smile onto his face. “I, uh, had an accident. Think I’ll head to the hospital for lunch.” Speaking was hard—so, so unexpectedly, incredibly hard, and it almost choked him up just to speak those few words. Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes as he gnashed his teeth together.

Dave’s eyebrows rose up, just a bit, but he made no move to let Mike by.

“Yeah,” his boss said vaguely, a distant, and not-quite-kind, smile splitting his sallow face, “those panels have minds of their own. Look away for even a second, and _BAM_.”

Mike jumped. Just a bit, against his better judgment.

“You’re lucky you didn’t lose those fingers.” The smile turned wry as he finally stepped out of the way, eyes following Mike as he shuffled out into the hallway. He only spoke up again when he was halfway to the exit. “Why don’t I drive you there?”

Mike stopped, clutching his wrist a bit tighter as he glanced from the corner of his eye, not quite turning to look at the man. “Yeah. Sure. Thanks.”

It would be easier than managing a fifteen minute drive one-handed.

But tense. So, so tense—suffocating. So much so that the pain pulsing through his hand couldn’t distract him.

Though separated by the middle console between the two front seats, the space in the old, beat-up mauve car was so oppressive that he may as well have been pressed shoulder-to-shoulder against the other man. And he couldn’t help but watch him from the corner of his eye the whole time, not just fully on guard, but because he couldn’t help but pick out the similarities between them. People always told him he looked a lot like his mother, but when he looked at Dave, at his profile, the nose, the chin, the eyebrows—even the ears—it all lined up with what he saw when he looked in the mirror every morning.

He tried not to dwell on it—but when he looked away, his head filled with more negative thoughts. Any moment, he expected to hear ‘ _Oh, sorry to tell you this at such a bad time, but you’re fired_ ,’ or a more brutal ‘ _Oh, by the way, you’re fired,’_ or ‘ _Why don’t you take some time off?’_ followed by a pink slip when he returned with hand healed.

But neither of them said a single word the whole time. Mike’s jaw was so stiff from gnashing his teeth together that he was afraid he would never be able to open his mouth again even if he _wanted_ to speak.

And, just like that, the car stopped just outside the hospital.

Mike reached for the door and all but jumped out onto the sidewalk, desperate to get his hand fixed and healed up as soon as possible and get back to work before he could be fired—but he wasn’t in such a hurry that he forgot his manners.

“Thanks,” he said tightly, through gritted teeth, clutching his wrist once more, just barely glancing at the man through the open passenger window.

Dave only offered a vague smile in return. But then, as the car pulled away from the curb, he added, “Take care, _Jeremy_.”

With the way he said his assumed name, the throwaway identity stitched on his coveralls, Mike wouldn’t be surprised if he knew the truth, too—that this secret hadn’t really been kept at all and he was only fooling himself.

Like father, like son.

**Author's Note:**

> https://takecake.tumblr.com/


End file.
